


Above a gulf of hamstrung promises

by risinggreatness



Series: Circle 'round the sun [88]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 06:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3371873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/risinggreatness/pseuds/risinggreatness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan in the afterlife</p>
            </blockquote>





	Above a gulf of hamstrung promises

He cannot remember if Padmé ever hugged him like this before. ( _Maybe she never did._ )

“Thank you,” she whispers.

For all their history, she truly means it now.

“Thank you,” he whispers back.

\----------

With the destruction of the Death Star, the diminishment of Vader is palpable; the wave of euphoria and power of Anakin’s children crashing over him.

Far away, Yoda frowns at the news.

“Now begins our true work.”

\----------

Mostly, they explore. They seek the vistas they could not find together in life.

It surprises Obi-Wan how much he is invigorated, but then he was not really so old. He does still look rather wretched.

“Vanity,” Satine laughs, clear and familiar, but as if he’s hearing it for the first time again.

He marvels, with all the infinites the Force offers him now, he needs only look back at her.

\----------

“How does Ahsoka fare?” he asks anyone.

Padmé never answers with words; just twists her hands and looks away guiltily.

“As well as any Jedi who made it,” Luminara notes gravely.

“It is easy for her to say it,” Obi-Wan thinks, though not bitterly. “She did not endure the protracted years of isolation and guilt.”

Ahsoka flickers of her old self, a self the Temple denied sometimes. She flickers of her old master in glasses slammed down on tables.

But to him, he might as well hold up a mirror for all that he sees in her.

\----------

The one luxury Tatooine afforded him was the security of distance. Padmé chose well in banishing him to an uninterrupted life there.

Nothing could compel Vader to return there; not his kin and certainly not the plans which were his responsibility.

( _But then, he never cared to be a part of Tarkin’s plan to win the favor of the Emperor._ )

The sky obliges Obi-Wan and darkens, thunder rumbling in some endless distance. Vader’s single-mindedness puts everything the late Tarkin did to shame. Imperial officers, spies, and informants come to the maelstrom of Vader’s hunt, to their own demise.

Vader without the emperor would leave the galaxy a single, burning wake. Vader with Luke, or should every failsafe fall, with Leia, would crush it to nothingness. A black hole.

Obi-Wan turns to face half a galaxy away, both of the children blissfully unaware; their greatest concern simply an empire to overthrow.

If he was meant to survive and teach them the ways of the Force, Obi-Wan’s not sure he could have put up with the Captain of the _Millennium Falcon_ for very long.

\----------

They watch, as if on the edge of a mountainous cliff. If they tip forward, they will fall right in. The height makes Obi-Wan dizzy, makes him nauseous. Whoever said there would be peace in death surely lied.

They watch as Vader beats Luke down, delivering the damning blow Obi-Wan deflected for only so long.

Padmé doesn’t watch, so much as glare into his back. Obi-Wan doesn’t tear his eyes away, waiting for Luke to fall.

“You did this,” Padmé spits, the venom in her voice a thousand times more painful here than in life.

Luke jumps; Obi-Wan half expects Luke to be delivered into the arms of his mother for the first time since the day he took the boy away.

Obi-Wan cannot avoid the disgust in Padmé’s tut when Luke calls out for him.

( _How can he go now? How can he not?_ )

There is a tangle of voices resonating in the Force, all powerful, all the same the same blood pumping through them.

When Luke collapses into his sister’s arms, Obi-Wan turns to look for Padmé. She is gone. It is time for him to retreat, Luke’s voice only a dim echo.

A cold wind rushes past Obi-Wan as he sinks slowly into the ground, tall grass whispering all around.

Satine’s arms are secure and warm.

\----------

The rain begins to fall, drips through the trees, passes through his face to the muddy, dank ground; a reminder he is not truly there.

He and Yoda should speak of what is in the boy’s heart, but the Grand Master must have his time in the afterlife, with his no doubt, countless reunions.

Give him peace before raising the hell of Luke Skywalker’s foolish plan.

“It could all be for nothing,” he says to the blue light beside him.

“Perhaps,” replies Qui-Gon, watching the X-wing depart for the last time.

Though there are those left who could train the girl, who would? Would Luke burden her with the final secrets before he left to defy everything they taught him again?

“He’s doing it for the right reason though,” Qui-Gon says contemplatively.

“Really?”

Obi-Wan supposes Qui-Gon may have his humor about small acts of defiance against the Council, but they were a consolation to him, like the prayer beads Padmé carried in their months of confinement. ( _He’d also seen her destroy them in the end._ )

Qui-Gon turns to him. Though he smiles, there is a great sadness in his eyes.

“For love, Obi-Wan.”

\----------

The other reunions linger. They are all fragments and reflect the same story: forgiveness and love, long overdue, almost forgotten.

He comes to Obi-Wan last of all. Anakin’s mother and Qui-Gon seem to retreat into the light; Padmé stays close, though she need not hesitate.

The last time Obi-Wan saw the face before him is not seared to his memory as it once was. In spite of the reminders, the burns, the scars; the face of the fifteen year-old he first met mostly shines through.

“I am an adult, you know,” he rasps.   Barely like the voice of Anakin Skywalker, but nothing like the voice who last spoke to him.

“And it is your responsibility as the younger brother to tell me constantly. I’ll never remember otherwise,” Obi-Wan says in mock seriousness.

Anakin grins; Obi-Wan throws his arms around him, the hug tight and secure.

It is morning, the suns shine, and it will be only warm for Obi-Wan evermore.

**Author's Note:**

> See author bio for discussion on this 'verse.


End file.
